As the number of features available in wireless communication devices has increased, user expectations have increased that wireless access will be available wherever they may be. People now expect to have access on the road, in coffee shops, at home and in the office, through wireless communication devices, to information previously available only from a personal computer that was physically connected to an appropriately provisioned network. They want stock quotes, weather reports and directions to the nearest seafood restaurant from their cell phones, email from their personal digital assistants (PDAs), up-to-date documents from their smartphones, and timely, accurate search results from all their devices. They may also want networked, real-time, interactive, multi-user gaming. They also want voice communications with a high level of service quality.
To keep up with wireless device users' insatiable appetite for more features in more locations, wireless service providers continually assess their wireless service performance and quality and regularly expand their wireless coverage to new areas or improve their coverage within their current network. To assess performance, a wireless service provider may regularly analyze quality from a number of test units. The test units could be fixed or mobile. For example, use of mobile test units to assess wireless service performance is reflected in one carrier's “Can you hear me now?” marketing campaign, showing a technician touring the countryside. A wireless service provider may also assess performance by simulating wireless signal quality or coverage based on, for example, geography, atmospheric conditions, volume of wireless service traffic, or other parameters.
These techniques for assessing performance may be cumbersome and expensive. They may only capture information for a small number of locations at particular times. Moreover, they may only capture information for a single wireless service provider or a small number of wireless service providers. The information that is captured may only be available to the entity that collected it, even though other entities, such as other wireless service providers or consumers, may benefit from the information.
Therefore, there is need for a method of assessing quality of wireless service of a plurality of wireless service provider networks in a more convenient and more flexible manner that also can provide additional helpful information to wireless users, carriers, and others.